Back to the Sunset Market

I didn't consider what I was asking the grandfather to take away. A child can't wrap their heads around the enormity of such things, the far-reaching implications. Could I ask a doctor to take a healthy leg? What manner of man would agree to take it?

I didn't think of this at eleven when I traded away my memories of my mother.

I watched the sun dip and the brightly-coloured stalls appear. Imagined watching the townsfolk go there in twos and threes all through the night. Watching them and standing apart. To be able to say: I was not there.

Or I could retrace our steps from all those years ago, the pathway hardly changed. Look for the dusty-suited old man. Ask him to reverse my... mistake?

I chuckled. As if a grandfather of grandfathers would still be alive fifty-one years later! I sobered. After all, if he was already so ancient, why shouldn't he be there?

Has anyone ever asked for a memory back?

A breath, and I could believe no time had passed. Parents, sister: all dead. No wife or children. No hard and fast tethers to anyone. But for a few aches and pains, I could be eleven again.

I could half close my eyes and see her there, on the edge of vision. Little Emily, seven years old, wide-eyed and skittish, the dying light of sunset in her hair. In that sweet moment, I felt keenly the aching gap of some missing limb or tooth. My fingers twitched at the absence of her grip.

My feet were carrying me before the rest of me had made the decision.

I moved from stall to stall like in a dream. But for his pipe, he looked the same. As though we'd just completed that solemn handshake, as if a lifetime hadn't been and gone in between.

"Can you give memories back?"

He quirked an eyebrow. "Rightly... no."

"But you can?"

"I can do one. For a price."

My stomach lurched in dismay. How brief would it be? How happy?

"The cost?"

He pointed his pipe at me. I shook his hand.

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Word count (excluding note): 366

Submitted on 3rd March at 21:15

This one follows on from the one I did yesterday, but should work as a stand alone story as well. Let me know what you think.

*Quick Author's Note*

First, and most importantly: thank you for reading!

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Pay no attention to the writer behind the curtain: If you didn't guess which film inspired these stories, it was Stardust. I'm a huge Neil Gaiman fan. I loved the book, and the film was excellently done. De Niro was perfect. (Keep reading - no major spoilers!)

When Tristan visits the market beyond the wall, he asks the young woman on the stall how much the bluebell charms cost. She tells him, "They might be the colour of your hair. Or they might be all of your memories before you were three."

A Year of Stories: I'm writing a story every day this year. This one makes a 63 day streak. You can find all of them in my Index post.

Thank you

Thank you again! I do my best to reciprocate all reads.